Supernatural: Coyote's Kiss (16 page)

“Okay,” Dean said, pulling up to the curb a couple of houses down from the target. “What have we got?”

“José Ibarita Porcayo,” Sam read off the screen of his laptop. “Forty-nine years old. Works at HandyMart, a franchise hardware store, during the day. Security for an office building at night. Married to a grade school teacher, Irma Diaz Porcayo, for twenty-one years, until her death six months ago. Cancer. Just one kid. A daughter, Claudia, fifteen. Looks like she was adopted.”

“Did you say
fifteen
?” Dean raised his eyebrows and leaned across the seat to look at the laptop’s screen.

“Fifteen years and nine months to be exact,” Sam said. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Abandoned female infant,” Dean said. “Age nine months. Mother never found.”

“You think he actually adopted the daughter of the woman he and his buddies raped and murdered?”

“That’s how it looks, doesn’t it?” Dean sat back, stunned.

“I’ll see what I can dig up in the way of adoption records,” Sam said, keys clicking. “You keep an eye on the house.”

Dean couldn’t even imagine what it must be like for Porcayo, living every day with that girl. Raising her as his own. Did he see her mother every time he looked at her?

Then, as if invoked by Dean’s speculation, a teenage girl came walking down the street. She was short and a little chubby, a gothy Hot Topic baby bat. Crayon red streak in her hair. Too much eyeliner, applied with a heavy, inexpert hand. Steel ring through her pouty lower lip. Unflattering black skinny jeans and a red-and-black striped T-shirt with a cute, cartoony skull on the front. Emily the Strange backpack. She walked with her arms tightly crossed, shoulders curled inward with the tense, wary body language of someone trying to avoid the attention of bullies. Dean was pretty sure this was Claudia, and his suspicions were confirmed when she turned into the target house, opening the front door with a key on a chain crowded with dangling bats and beads and big-eyed Japanese anime figures.

“It’s only 11:30,” Sam said peering at his watch. “Shouldn’t she be in school?”

“Cutting class maybe?” Dean suggested.

“We should probably to talk to her,” Sam said.

“Well we obviously can’t just kick the door down and shove a gun in her face,” Dean said.

He looked down the street, wondering where Xochi was and how long it would be before she showed up. Weird, how quickly he’d gotten used to having her around. It didn’t seem possible that just two days ago, he wasn’t even sure she was human.

“Do you think she knows?” Sam asked.

“About her mother’s murder?” Dean shook his head. “No way. And I’m not gonna be the one to tell her.” He cut Sam off before he could speak. “Neither are you. Trust me on this. We don’t go there unless we absolutely have to.”

“One other thing,” Sam said. “Remember that the Borderwalker just showed up inside Brewer’s apartment. It’s not like we’re gonna see her walking down the street before she attacks. By the time we realized anything was going down inside that house, it would be too late.”

“So what,” Dean asked. “We break in and set up a duckblind in the bedroom closet?”

“I think we should head over to HandyMart,” Sam replied. “Have ourselves a chat with Dad.”

The HandyMart was a cavernous, sprawling warehouse with piles of plywood and PVC piping stacked to the mile-high ceiling. Fenced outdoor garden center off to one side, full of leggy juvenile citrus trees and brambly pink-and-red bougainvillea. Aisle after aisle of bathroom fixtures and closet organizers and every shape and size of screw ever invented. It smelled like hot sawdust and fresh paint.

It took them nearly twenty minutes of searching the aisles to find Porcayo. They eventually spotted him in the light fixture section, one hand on a shelf and his face turned away from them. He had thick, wavy black hair and dark brown skin. Maybe five-foot eight with a stocky, muscular build. He wore neatly pressed khaki pants and a green HandyMart polo shirt, plus a cheery yellow apron with his name on it and a smiley face button that said “Happy to Serve You!”

“Excuse me,” Dean said.

Porcayo turned to them, startled. Dean saw that the man had been crying. His square-jawed, handsome face was contorted and ugly with grief, dark eyes bloodshot and raw. He pressed a shaking hand to his lips. Dean felt instantly uncomfortable and embarrassed for the older man.

“Welcome to HandyMart,” Porcayo said, voice cracking slightly. “How can I help you?”

Dean was at a loss for a moment, confronted with the intense emotion in the man’s tortured face, but Sam jumped right in, stoic and unruffled.

“Mr. Porcayo,” Sam said, badge in hand. “I’m Special Agent Kolchak. My partner Agent Summers. Is there somewhere we can speak in private?”

“Is this about Claudia?” Porcayo asked. “She’s a good girl, really. She’s just been through so much. Losing her mother...”

Sam and Dean exchanged a look.

“Well,” Dean said. “It is and it isn’t. But we really should discuss this in private.”

Porcayo pulled in a long, shaky breath. Wiped his lips again.

“Yeah, okay,” he said.

He led the brothers into a grungy little breakroom near the public toilets. Dusty drop ceiling and scuffed linoleum. Cheap card-table with a few dented metal folding chairs. There was a pair of vending machines on the far side of the room, one filled with generic, off-brand soft drinks and the other an array of unappetizing, fossilized snacks. A staticy television bolted to the wall played some kind of animal show featuring badly lit home video clips of cats and dogs knocking over toddlers. Dean got the distinct feeling that the corporate masters of HandyMart would really rather their employees didn’t take breaks.

“Why did you think we wanted to ask you about your daughter?” Sam asked.

“Well,” Porcayo looked at the television screen for a moment, then down at the toes of his beat-up work boots. “The skipping school, the shoplifting and then that destruction of public property thing two weeks ago. My wife...” He swallowed hard. “When she got sick again... Claudia started acting out. Irma, my wife, she always used to say that I’m too soft on Claudia, that I don’t discipline her enough. She was right, I know. But now, with Irma gone...” He spread his hands, palm up. “I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

Dean thought the guy was going to break down again. Dean couldn’t help but feel for him, and he had to remind himself of what Porcayo and his buddies had done to Claudia’s real mother. Apparently, Sam didn’t need to be reminded.

“This isn’t about shoplifting,” Sam said. “This is about rape. Rape and murder.”

Porcayo staggered as if Sam had slapped him. He gripped the back of one of the folding chairs to hold himself up and then lowered himself slowly into the seat.

“I saw the news,” Porcayo said. “They’re all dead. Keene, Himes and Brewer.” He looked down at his calloused hands like they were stained with blood. “It’s her, isn’t it?

“Yes,” Sam said.

“And now she’s coming for me.”

“I’m afraid so.”

Porcayo put his head in his hands.

Dean was extremely glad to have Sam take the wheel on this one. He knew he shouldn’t be so sympathetic but he couldn’t help it. After all, if Porcayo really had been possessed in some way and unable to control his actions, he could hardly be blamed for what had happened that night. Plus he’d tried so hard to make up for what he’d done, taking the kid in and raising her as his own. Having her there every day as a living, breathing reminder of his unspeakable crime. Without him, who knows what would have happened to that baby.

“Look, Mr. Porcayo,” Sam said. “We can help you, but...”

Porcayo took an orange plastic box cutter from a pocket in his apron and thumbed the blade open.

“Whoa,” Dean said, grabbing Porcayo’s wrist before he could slash open the inside of his forearm. “Okay, take it easy now.”

“Let me go!” Porcayo hissed, struggling against Dean and kicking over the chair.

“Just take it easy, José,” Dean said. “Can I call you José?” Dean repeated Porcayo’s first name in a soft voice, trying to calm him down. “Please, José, just listen. We’re here to help you. You and Claudia, okay?”

A petite Latina with disproportionately big hair and big gold loop earrings pushed the door open with her shoulder, texting on her cell phone. She was dressed the same as Porcayo, khakis, polo shirt and a yellow HandyMart apron, but somehow managed to make her outfit look provocative and ultra-feminine. She paused in front of the door for a moment, thumbs flying on the tiny keyboard and eyes riveted on the screen. When she looked up and spotted Dean and Porcayo, frozen with the boxcutter held high above their heads, she did a broad, comical double take, bumping backwards into the door.

Sam badged her.

“Official business,” Sam said. “I’m gonna have to ask you to step outside, ma’am.”

For a second she just stared at Sam, over-glossed lips hanging slackly open.

“Um,” she finally said. “Yeah, okay. I’ll just... come back later.”

She backed out the door, never taking her wide, disbelieving eyes off Dean and Porcayo.

When she was gone, Porcayo let go of the box cutter, letting it clatter noisily to the linoleum. Sam picked up the fallen chair and set it upright. Dean eased up on his grip, and guided Porcayo back to the chair. Porcayo sat, shoulders slumped, hopeless and defeated. He didn’t cry. He just sat there, staring at nothing.

“Nobody calls me José,” he said, his voice a dull monotone. “Except my mother.”

“So what do they call you?” Dean asked.

“Joey,” he said.

“Listen to me, Joey,” Sam said. “If we’re going to stop her, we need you to tell us everything about what really happened on the night of April 18th 1995.”

“Look, man, I was there,” Porcayo said. “And even I’m not sure what really happened.”

Dean and Sam didn’t press him, they just waited for him to continue.

“I’m not trying to cop out and say it wasn’t my fault,” Porcayo said. “But something happened to the four of us that night. Something I can’t explain. I’ve been over it and over it in my head, every night for fifteen years. Trying to understand. I mean, I’m no angel. I got into some trouble when I was growing up. Fights, that kind of thing. But in all my life, I would never hurt a woman. Never.”

He got up and walked over to the soda machine. Put in some coins and pulled out a can of cola. Popped it open and took a sip. He didn’t sit back down.

“Before my father took off, he used to hit my mother.” He looked down at the can in his hand as though the nutritional information was profoundly fascinating. “He hurt her so bad she couldn’t have no more children. I was her only son, and she made me swear to her every day that I would never be like him. I have a lot of anger inside me, just like his anger. It’s in my blood, and I know I could be like him if I’m not careful. That’s why I would never let that anger out on a woman, no matter what. Before I met Irma, I was dating this chick who used to get all crazy, throwing stuff and slapping me. She stabbed me in the arm with a pen one time. I never did nothing back to her, I just walked away. My friends made fun of me for years because of that, but that’s how important my promise was to me. I just don’t understand how a promise that was so important could go right out the window for no good reason. That poor woman didn’t do nothing to me. She was just trying to get away.”

“At any point during the attack,” Sam said, “did you feel like you were not in control of your body?”

“Yeah,” Porcayo said. “That’s exactly how I felt. I kept on trying to stop, even just to turn my head away, but I couldn’t. It sounds crazy, I know, but...”

“We believe you, Joey,” Dean said.

“What can you tell us about what happened after the assault?” Sam asked.

“We...” Porcayo wiped his lips again. “We just left her there. We all had control over our bodies at that point, but... We didn’t do anything to save her. We were all so ashamed of what had happened that we just walked away. That still haunts me.”

He finished the soda. Crushed the can.

“When we had rounded up all the other migrants in the group, I went back to her. I felt so horrible about what had happened that I went back to try and help her. She was gone. I don’t mean dead, I mean gone, like she had never been there. That’s when I heard a baby crying. That’s when I found Claudia.”

“My wife couldn’t have kids. She had to have a hysterectomy because of cervical cancer when she was just twenty-three and she thought no man would ever want to marry her. But she was so smart and so pretty. She was my angel, the best thing that ever happened to me. Better than a guy like me deserved.” He choked up and had to pause for a moment. “She was so happy when I brought home the paperwork to adopt Claudia. She never knew anything about what really happened. Neither one of them ever knew. I told them her mother died trying to cross the border.”

He looked up at Dean.

“Is Claudia in danger?”

“Perhaps,” Dean said. “We really have no way of knowing. I don’t think so, but I also think it would be a good idea for her to stay with relatives or friends, until we catch this thing.”